Rachel, Lorent, Klezmi, Silva, and a few others in minor roles are mine.
Rated PG : language; sexuality; violence; some mature concepts.
This is an AU; Alex's future is the year 2200, there's no communication between the two times at this point, no zords or megazords except the Q-Rex - in somewhat different form.
Please review, it keeps me going.
I had dreams as I lay in that hospital bed, fighting for my life, terrifying nightmares of fire and destruction, visions of myself with Jen, saying and doing things that hadn't happened, at least not in my world. Twisted dreams of a Time Force that was different somehow, of living in a city, and a world, that seemed wrong in some way I couldn't quite define. Just dreams, but later they would seem significant.
A woman's voice spoke to me, weaving in and out of those other worlds. Sometimes it seemed to be Jen, sometimes I knew it was someone else. I could see her face, but it was Jen's face, and Rachel's, and my mother's, and the face of every woman I had ever known. Only her hand holding mine seemed real and substantial, I could feel it often, holding me back, keeping me from drifting away.
The first time I remember opening my eyes, I was staring up at a white ceiling. There's something about hospitals, the look, the sounds, the smell. I knew instantly where I was. The room I was in was empty. The effort of a few moments of looking around was too much; I went back to sleep, without dreaming this time.
Maybe you're wondering what the hell I was doing dreaming, or opening my eyes, in a hospital or anywhere else, considering I just said I had died? It's a long story, and the answer will become obvious. All I'll say for now is that I did die. Or I lived. Depending on which reality you're talking about.
The next time I woke up, I saw faces, familiar ones. Captain Logan and Rachel were sitting by the window, talking quietly. Neither of them noticed that I had my eyes open. It was nice, peaceful, the room was sunny, the window was open a little, and I could smell and feel the fresh air. For a few moments that was all I noticed or cared about, as their conversation continued.
"We still can't make contact," Logan was saying.
"But they must have gotten there safely. They must be doing something to stop Ransik. All we've seen so far are relatively minor shifts in reality."
"True. But the timestream is still disrupted, and it's getting worse. That means he's doing something back then." He sighed. "Maybe they're all right. But we just don't know. I don't see how they could have activated the morphers, and without them they don't have a chance. Those damned controls…"
Rachel's voice was unhappy. "We thought they were a good idea at the time."
"I know. Not anyone's fault. No one could have anticipated this situation." Logan paused and sighed heavily again. "Maybe he's just waiting for the right time. Maybe… Damn it, we don't even know what he'll try to change. We don't know if they made it. Just the fact that they haven't responded when we tried to communicate…"
"That doesn't necessarily mean… maybe their equipment was damaged. Maybe they had to hide it from the natives of that time."
At about this point I began to suspect what -- and who -- they were talking about. "Jen?" I said. It came out as an almost incoherent croak.
Both of them jumped and stared at me as if I was Ransik himself. "Alex?" Rachel exclaimed. A smile burst over her face. They got up, came close and leaned over the bed.
"How do you feel?" Logan asked.
I concentrated and got the words out in a more understandable form this time. "What happened? Where's Jen?"
They exchanged an uncomfortable glance. "Don't you remember?" Rachel asked.
"Ransik -- he got away…" It came back, all of it, jolting me closer to full alertness. "We were fighting -- the roof -- Jen…"
"Yes. You fought Ransik. He shot you."
"He got away, didn't he?"
"Don't worry about that now, Alex," Rachel said anxiously. "You need to rest."
"I told her to go after him." I stared up at them. "She went, didn't she? That's what you were talking about." Another glance between them. I could almost read their minds. "Tell me the truth!" I said as forcefully as I could, considering I was flat on my back.
Logan pulled a chair over and sat at my bedside. "Yes," he said quietly. "Jen, Lucas, Katie, and Trip took a timeship and went after Ransik. They left just before the timestream became impassable."
"The morphers…"
"They took their morphers, and yours." His brows lifted a little. "Why did you give them yours, anyway? You know no one else can use it."
I took a moment to think, realizing I didn't have a logical answer. "I thought I was dying. Don't know, just wanted her to have it."
"Probably a good thing," Rachel put in. "We linked the other morphers to yours, as an extra security precaution. The first time they're used, yours must be activated at the same time. The technicians who gave them the morphers didn't know, or didn't think of it -- everything was done in such a hurry, they had to go before the timestream got too disrupted."
"But no one but me can use it!"
"Trip might have been able to unlock it with the equipment in the ship… If he figured out how to do it."
"And if he didn't?"
Her eyes dropped away from mine. "Then the morphers are all useless. But Trip's a brilliant engineer. I think he could do it."
"But -- you can't make contact with them?"
Now Logan was avoiding my gaze. "That's right."
"Oh, God." I closed my eyes. "What have I done?"
"You did what you had to do."
"Jen -- and the rest of them -- they were still just trainees, practically… How could you let them go?"
"We had to. Jen was desperate to go, she wouldn't wait for orders. By the time we realized how serious the situation was, they had gotten their equipment together, they were the only ones ready, the only ones we could send."
I thought about it for a few moments. I was worried sick about Jen, but there were other considerations that I had to admit were more important. "You said there's been some changes in reality?"
"Yes," Rachel said, after another one of those glances at Logan. "Minor shifts, so far. We haven't activated our shielding yet."
"I suppose we may need it later."
"We hope not." Logan stood up. "You almost died from that blaster shot. You need to rest if you're going to be any use to us." His tone did not permit any argument.
"We'll see you later," Rachel said. They both looked back from the doorway, smiles on their faces, but I could see the worry underneath.
It was dark outside when I woke up again. The room was darkened, too, just enough light for me to see a human form in the chair next to the bed. I must have made some sound that wakened her, she stirred, blinking, yawned, and smiled at me.
"Rachel?" I asked.
"Yes. Feeling better?"
"Tired."
"You should be tired. You almost died."
"That's what Logan said... How long has it been?"
"You've been in the hospital for over a month."
"A month?"
"Yes."
I thought about it for a few seconds. "Rachel -- Ransik shot me with that stepped-up blaster of his -- from only centimeters away -- how am I still alive?"
"We suspected from the historical record that Ransik escaped into the past. We took extra precautions to protect you, before we sent you to fight him. Don't you remember?"
"The damper. The shielded uniform." Those memories seemed to click into place, as if they hadn't been there a moment before.
"Yes. The energy absorber we built into the morpher, and the blast-proofing in your uniform. Even when you were forcibly demorphed, they deflected enough energy from that blaster shot to save your life."
"I remember now. But..."
"Yes. We only installed them as a result of Ransik's interference with history. Reversed cause and effect... In the original timeline, you must have died."
"So..." I tried to comprehend that. "The timeline's already been changed? And -- Jen must think I'm dead."
"I'm afraid so. In the reality Jen left from, you were dead."
"You mean I'm alive because of a time glitch?"
"I guess that's as good a way to put it as any." She sighed. "Time travel is a new science. No one has changed history before. Nothing like this has ever happened before. There's so much we don't know."
"Can we send someone after them?"
"No. The timestream is too disrupted. Nothing could get through intact. I'm afraid they're on their own."
I closed my eyes, the image of Jen rising before me, stranded in the past, those four people all alone in an unfamiliar time... "When are they? Where?"
"Two hundred years ago. Right here in Silver City, as far as we can tell. It was still called Silver Hills then."
"You don't know what Ransik's trying to do?"
"All we know is that Time Force had its origins in Silver Hills. Ransik will presumably try to interfere with that. Our historical records are -- unreliable." For the first time, real fear showed on her face. "History -- reality -- everything could change around us."
I felt the need to reassure her, although I felt far from confident myself. "If things are still changing -- doesn't that mean Ransik hasn't been able to finish what he went into the past to do?"
She smiled again. "I think so. It means Jen, Lucas, Trip, and Katie are all right. They're fighting him. They still have a chance to stop him."
I could feel my eyes getting heavy again. "Wish I was there... to help..."
"They can do it. Everything will be all right."
As I drifted back into sleep I thought I saw Jen bend over me and leave a light goodnight kiss on my forehead. But somehow she had curly reddish hair, light brown skin, and blue eyes -- just like Rachel. Vaguely, I realized the voice I had heard in my dreams, the face I had seen, probably the hand I had held, had been hers.
The next days passed quickly. I slept most of the time. Several of my friends from Time Force came by. My parents had stayed in town until after I was out of danger, and they came back now to visit. I had never realized before how proud they were of me, but it showed. I had also never seen Logan as exactly the caring type, but he was there every day, bringing me up to date, just spending some time. Rachel came every day, too, trying to cheer me up and keep me amused.
After several days of my demands, they let me watch the vid. I could see why they had been reluctant. The top story every day was the state of the timestream, whether history was about to change, whether we could expect to wake up tomorrow in our own reality or something else. The reports were reassuring, for the most part. I didn't believe them.
I had reached the point of being able to get up and walk a few steps on my own before I pressed Logan about it. He was there on one of his daily visits when I confronted him.
"Just how bad is it, Logan? And tell me the truth this time."
Apparently he decided I was ready to hear it, or at least part of it. "It's bad. The disruption is getting steadily worse." He considered me for a moment before going on. "We're having you transferred to the Time Force infirmary as soon as possible, tomorrow if the doctors think you're ready."
"Why? What's really going on? You're expecting a shift of reality, aren't you?"
"We don't know, Alex."
"What about Jen and the others?"
"We've seen some indications of Ranger activity in the past, but we just can't be sure."
"Did Ransik take Conwing, Steelix, and Brickneck with him?"
"I'm afraid so. Also Nadira and Frax."
"Jen and her team -- up against all of them -- isn't there anything we can do?"
He sighed. "We have a plan. It's desperate, but we'll try anything at this point. We're going to send the Quantum morpher and the Q-Rex back."
"The Quantum morpher. But it's still experimental."
"Yes, but we've done a lot of work with it while you've been here. It's ready for use. So is the Q-Rex."
I was quiet and thought about it for a few moments. The Quantum morpher was the next generation of Ranger morphers, more powerful than mine had been. It could control the Q-Rex -- the Quantum Battlewagon, nicknamed the Quantasaurus Rex, an armored tank capable of both flying and walking. It was one of our most powerful weapons. The fact that Time Force command was willing to send it back to the past, with all the resulting risk of damage to history, told me just how bad things were.
"Who's going to use them?" I asked.
Logan looked even more unhappy. "At this point, we can't send a person through. We're sending the morpher, inside a protective casing, and the Q-Rex, and we'll broadcast a message for our team. If they pick it up, and if they can find the morpher, it could help them. Or if the timestream clears, we can send someone back to use them."
"That's a lot of ifs."
He sighed. "I know."
"What if someone else finds that morpher, and uses it?"
"Then we're screwed."
The next day they moved me to the Time Force infirmary.
My recovery continued for another month, too slowly for my taste, especially since I had some idea of the seriousness of our situation. Somehow my own helplessness made it worse, as I spent long hours lying in bed, waiting, worrying. Logan continued to visit, and Rachel. When I questioned them, all they would tell me was that everything was 'under control', giving the lie to their own words with the expressions on their faces. Time crawled, and my dreams were filled with images of Jen, lost somewhere in the past, struggling against a Ransik who seemed even more monstrous than he was in fact.
Rachel was waiting to escort me home on the day I was finally released from the infirmary, and allowed to return to my own apartment. I might have told her I didn't need help, but to tell the truth I was glad of her company. I also had some questions for her.
We walked outside, and everything left my mind for the moment except the sheer pleasure of being outdoors again, in the open air, under the sky and in the sunlight. I turned my face up and stood for a moment, eyes closed, then looked around at the trees, branches bending slightly in a gentle breeze, and back up at the few white clouds drifting in that blue sky.
"Wow. I missed this," I said.
Rachel was watching me, an amused smile on her face. "I can see that."
"Come on, let's go through the park."
"Sure. I could use the walk."
We strolled slowly and silently for several minutes, not speaking again until we reached the small park between the Time Force main residence buildings. I found a bench among the trees and we sat. I was tired already, still feeling the effects of my injury and the long weeks of enforced idleness.
"Rachel. Tell me."
She must have been expecting it; she smiled slightly. "Things aren't good. But you knew that."
"What's going on?"
"We don't know. The timestream is in violent flux. We've been shielded since the day you were moved into the infirmary."
"But that's -- what? -- over a month now!"
"Yes. The disruption is growing. The shields will fail soon." She looked at me, her composure faltering for the first time. "The world as we know it is coming to an end."
"God." I said it softly, with all the fear I felt in that one word.
"You wanted the truth."
"Yes… Is there any hope?"
Her chin came up. "There's always hope, Alex. Always. We have four top officers in place, in the past. I'm sure they're doing their best."
"But…" I trailed off. What if their best wasn't good enough? What if -- what if they were hurt -- what if they were dead? I shook my head, unwilling to consider even the possibility that Jen was gone forever. "Is Logan planning anything?"
"We've done all we can. He's going to send a recorded transmission into the timestream, telling them the situation here, and about the Quantum weapons." She smiled again, resting a gentle hand on my arm. "We have to put our trust in them. Hope they can still win out."
Only days later I watched Logan's face as he waited for the Chrono-communicator to be ready. His expression was grim. So was mine, and Rachel's, and that of everyone in Logan's office. We were all condemned men and women.
The condition of the timestream had worsened again. Our shields were expected to fail in a matter of hours, at which time we would be absorbed into the changed reality surrounding us. We had seen enough of it to terrify us, to make each of us hope that we would be lucky enough to be already dead in that new world.
We had sent the Q-Rex and the Quantum morpher for Jen and her team to use, but the effort had gone disastrously wrong. Because of the disruption of the timestream, they had both gone astray, the Q-Rex landing approximately sixty-five million years ago. The morpher was only off by a few weeks, but we could not give them a physical location. If they could find it, it might help. If they were alive. If it wasn't too late. If Ransik hadn't already changed history irreparably. If, if, if...
The technician nodded. Logan blinked, sat up straight, and began to speak into the communicator.
"Jen, Lucas, Katie, Trip. We can only hope you arrived safely in the past, since we haven't been able to contact you. We are transmitting this message in the hope you will pick it up."
The message would be broadcast into the timestream as a recording. It would echo there for a while, giving them a window of time to pick it up.
"The timestream has shifted as a result of changes Ransik has made in the past. We've shielded ourselves from the shift as much as possible, but we can't protect ourselves much longer. Soon we will be absorbed into the new reality. When that happens you four will be the only ones who remember the original timeline.
"Whatever Ransik has done -- or will do in your timeframe -- has affected the formation of Time Force. As you know we have suppressed the records of our own origin in order to prevent exactly this kind of attack. Even we don't know much about how Time Force was formed, and now we can't access our sealed records. Apparently Ransik found out enough to accomplish it. All I can tell you is that the time and place where you are now -- Silver Hills, California, year 2001 -- is crucial to our origin.
"Soon, our shielding will fail, and Time Force will cease to exist. In the new reality, without us, several countries produced large numbers of mutant soldiers. Wars were fought with them. The destruction was terrible. Then the mutants decided to turn on their real enemies, the ones who created them and used them as weapons. There is now a war going on between humans and mutants. Biological weapons have been used. Hundreds of millions of people on both sides are dead, more are dying, and there's no end in sight.
"You must stop Ransik at all costs. Find out what he's doing, and prevent or reverse it."
He went on to summarize the situation with the Quantum equipment, his voice betraying the hopelessness we all felt. Then the time was up. Logan finished his message.
"We will not be able to contact you again. Soon we will no longer exist. Good luck. Save us if you can. Everything depends on you." He was silent for a moment, staring stonily into the communicator before ending very softly, "Logan out."
Rachel and I left together, walking through the park again, both of us looking around at the beauty surrounding us, taking deep breaths of the cool air, drinking it in with a sort of desperation. Surrounded by trees, I stopped. A sense of unreality came over me, I seemed raw, naked, terribly exposed and connected to everything around me, to all the things that might be gone forever soon. As a sudden chill breeze gusted, I could almost believe it was blowing away the very fabric of reality around us.
"This world is so beautiful… I don't want it to end…" I said softly. Without thinking, I held out my hand. Rachel took it.
"Alex..." Her face was troubled, her eyes intent. Her hand closed tightly on mine.
"Yes."
"In a few hours we'll be gone, our world will be gone." She took a breath, perhaps for courage. "I'm afraid. I want to stay with you. I want us to be together tonight." Her voice was low but clear and firm, no hesitation, no shyness. There was no time.
Our eyes locked, we stared into each other's faces for a few heartbeats as those words hung in the air between us. Somehow I wasn't surprised. And I wasn't displeased.
"Rachel…"
"I know. You love Jen, and you always will. That's all right. I don't expect you to love me. But -- I don't want to be alone -- not now. I want to be with you."
"Rachel…" I almost whispered it, this time. We moved closer together. The image of Jen came into my mind, but it didn't matter, not now. What did anything matter, except taking and giving whatever comfort we could to each other?
We came together, the breeze soft around us, the branches sighing gently, the patterns of light and shadow drifting over us as the warm sun filtered through the trees. A moment in time, perfect, all the more beautiful because of its impermanence, as my arms closed around her, and hers around me. Her eyes seemed endlessly deep, glints of fear in them, and something more. Her lips were soft as we kissed, her breath warm on my face as I held her close.
We didn't need any more words. I took her hand again, and we turned our steps toward my apartment, to spend our last hours together.
And that night, the world ended...
TBC...